Greece: First attempt to form post election government fails

Athens
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Antonis Samaras, leader of New Democracy, which won the biggest mandate in Sunday's elections, has failed to form a coalition government to work with ND's 108 politicians.

Samaras negotiated with five of the other six elected parties, but outright refused to deal with the far right Golden Dawn, which entered Parliament for the first time after winning 21 seats. Samaras said, “We did everything we could, but it just wasn’t possible" Ekathimerini reported.

Following the failure of Anthonis Samaras, the mandate to form a new government has now passed to Alexis Tsipras, leader of SYRIZA, which garnered the second highest percentage of the vote, winning 52 seats. According to Athens News Tsipras will try to piece together a left-wing anti-memorandum coalition.

Following SYRIZA's leap to become Greece's second largest party in the elections, Tsipras said "European leadership and especially (German Chancellor Angela) Merkel have to understand that austerity policies have suffered defeat." CNN reported. He added the election results were "a message of a peaceful revolution."

Should Tsipras also fail to form a workable coalition government, then the mandate will pass to PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos. If he fails, then further elections will be called. Speculation is rife that if each of the three leading parties fails to form a coalition government then a technocrat government may be imposed.